17-Year-Old Kid Tells How To Make A Real BB-8 Droid Powered By Arduino

Short Bytes: The engineering prodigy Angelo Casimiro has made a life-size BB-8 droid. This robot was made by using the household materials and a little bit Arduino circuitry. Watch the video, see how it’s done and make one for yourself.

A 17-year-old kid is here to teach you how to make The Force Awakens’ BB-8 droid. While it may not be a real-life AI-powered droid, the engineering prodigy Angelo Casimiro has done a commendable job.

You can make this life-size BB-8 robot at home and control it with a free iPhone app. To cut down the cost, Angelo used paper mache to make the central sphere and topped it with a styrofoam head. Overall, this adorable BB-8 robot is made from just $100 worth of parts.

“Due to the limitation of materials, I resorted in using the materials around me (deodorant roll-ons as ball bearings, canvas as fiberglass, Christmas balls as the eye & etc.)”, he says.

Talking about its brain, Angelo’s BB-8 is powered by the open source microcontroller board Arduino Uno. It controls the wheels placed at the bottom of the robot when it moves around.

Angelo even manages to keep BB-8’s head right in place with a set of speaker magnets and their magnetic force. To control the droid, Angelo uses a free Arduino controller app that is connected to a Bluetooth board placed inside the droid.